The 2004 state funeral of 40th President Ronald Reagan drew the attention of millions throughout the world, from heads of state to civilians in remote nations.
From the state funeral in Washington to his final internment in Simi Valley, Ronald Reagan belongs not just to the ages, but the imaginations of those who lived and worked with him in their day, and to the future generations who learned of him and his legacy.
Reagan's final words, so to speak, etched onto the tomb in which he was interred, however, expose a dark veneer to the political legacy of his resurgent conservatism and American optimism which captivated the United States and ushered in a new era of American dominance:
"I know in my heart that man is good, that what is right will always eventually triumph, and there is purpose and worth to each and every life."
Man is not good. How could the President who faced off against the Soviet Union, justly casting the Communist menace "an evil empire," harbinger of disease and death for millions through visionary Marxism, then declare in his final resting place, the inherent "goodness" of man?
Man is not good. It is man's inhumanity to man which characterizes the widespread crime and corruption plaguing every society. From the knowledge of right and wrong, man is inclined to do wrong, unless watched or warned, and even then much of the time he resorts still to wrongdoing. James Madison, the Father of the Constitution, whose political genius recast a backward nation into the bastion of freedom that it is today, remarked soberly:
"If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary."
Federalist #51
Man is not good; men are not angels. This fundamental appreciation of human nature is a central value which guided the deliberation and design of the United States Constitution. Coming from one whose oath of office for the Presidency, included the duty to uphold and defend the Constitution, Reagan's radical reversal against a millenia of natural and political philosophy is laughable, if not treasonous.
"What is right will always eventually triumph". The progenitor of the modern Conservative political philosophy, Edmund Burke, remarked otherwise: "All that is
necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing." Faith may move mountains, but the faithful must believe in something worthy of faith. Moreover, one must speak to the mountain, exercising the faith and effecting the removal of the mountain. By submission to authorities (tradition, constraints on self-indulgence) greater than oneself, and effecting the rights and liberties engaged to us by our Creator, we then will witness the triumph of what is right. Let us never fall into the slovenly belief that what is right lies squarely, and exclusively, within ourselves, or that what is right will manifest itself simply by our wishing for the abstract notion of right to make itself known and apparent.
"There is purpose and worth to each and every life." The one clause which speaks truth eternally and temporally, Reagan pronounced merely the obvious, which in itself is more obfuscation than clarification. Everyone, even the most depressed suicide to the most narcissistic self-serving sycophant, believes that his or her life has purpose and worth. The question we must all ponder--a political as well as moral question--is where does this worth come from? Does it come from ourselves, from our communities, from the Government, or from God? Who decides that I have worth? What is that worth? And how much is that worth worth to me? Will I stand up for it, and will I stand up for the worth of others? Will I defend the worth only of those who are friends? What about those whom I do not know, or whom I do not like?
As far as purpose is concerned, even the catastrophic philosophical monomaniac Emmanuel Kant conceded that "the human heart refuses to believe in world without purpose." The heart, ever the lonely hunter, pursues this purpose, though, much of the time to the detriment of its owner or those around him, even his countrymen. "The heart is evil above all things; who can know it?" The weeping prophet moaned. Indeed.
Even the pleonasm "each and every" highlights the comfort-measure emptiness of Ronald Reagan's America-loving, big-government bashing, heart-stirring candor. Optimism is a worthy vehicle for change, yet the destination and the means of promulgating this optimism cannot fly in the face of man's inherent depravity and initial confusion, who being scarcely half-made is flung up into a world filled with answers, which tragically instigate more troubling questions and concerns, as opposed to benign sunshine certainty.
Ronald Reagan, a consistent communicator until his death, did not live up to the design of the nation which he led for eight stormy, eventful, and prosperous years. His contorted vision of despising government and praising the humanity of man only brewed the incompatible mix of compassionate conservatism, which has driven this nation to wage unnecessary wars in the Middle East for “freedom and democracy”, then burden future generations with over-generous entitlement obligations, finally to swallow up the substance and style of the state with debts and deficits, all unthinkable in the days of the Framers.
With Reagan's parting words, the Conservative Movement (and the Republican Party) must part from the figurehead-executive who made the rally-cry against Big Government a populist movement, as well as a popular one, though hardly heeding its purpose. Now, the American people must make the unpopular decisions of doing without all that their ancestors had done without in times past, but have now been lulled into think that they cannot do without now. From the Tea Party to the Austrian Economists to the fiscal conservatives throughout the nation, now is the time to look past the naive optimist of the Gipper and embrace the skeptical cynicism of Madison, Burke, and Barry Goldwater, all who flew in the face of popular sentiment to promote a necessary vision of the Federal Government, a process of constraint, limited to protecting our rights, securing our borders, and returning all other powers to the states and the people.
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